Memo results

I just want everyone to know that I got a 220 out of 200 on the first individual memo. End of Brag-fest.

Importance of Writing/Exam

Let me just begin by recapping this weeks leadership experiences (for my own sake):
On Monday we received feedback on our individual memo's, which was probably for the benefit of writing the next memo. I only hope that we get the results back before the group memo is due so I can see if I'm on the right track.

Our discussion on Monday caused me to lend some extra thought to the idea of writing. Writing is important--why? Because problem solving is important and writing is problem-solving. The best writers are excellent problem solvers. They masterfully use the tools of rhetoric and an expansive vocabulary to express complex and abstract ideas in a way clear, concise manner for others to read and comprehend. All skillful problem-solvers are also creative, just as good writers are creative. They seek innovative solutions to problems and approach writing using creativity and originality to express ideas in a unique way. Take the author's use of the word "scourged" in the paper and the reaction it ellicited from the reader who would have never thought to use the word in that context. Colorful, creative, unique, surprising. These are all words we want our writing to be described with.

Wednesday was the test. Reading the book, understanding the book, and analyzing and thinking about the book did NOT help me on the test. I would have done much better just to have memorized all the headings and subheadings in the book. But I thought since it was an essay test, mastering the concepts and the spirit of the word was far more important than memorizing the letter of the word. However, that wasn't really the main problem. The main problem was time; and with lack of time, pressure. The test was impossible to complete to a satisfactory degree in the allotted time. But I suppose the point of the test was just to make yet another point. What exactly that particular point is, I am not even going to venture to guess at this moment as I am sure Feinberg will go through it next class. I know he was dropping hints all about it last week.

Finger trap---> Vision.

Just when I think I know it all, Feinberg comes out with some new idea that, for some reason, would never occur to me no matter how painfully obvious it seems. How is there really so much to leadership? I used to think it was all just common sense but it is amazing how much goes right past me. Tonight with the finger trap activity, I thought "Oh here we go, do we really need to drag it out?" I thought the point was obvious from the get-go, simply that all it takes is one weak link to bring down the whole organization or something like that. Wrong! The point was vision: have it, see it, make others believe in it. So I was a little off. Just how off I was became clear to me when we watched the Covey clip. I don't know if I was even lucky enough to graze the tip of the iceberg with my premature assumptions of what direction the lecture was headed in. I knew the Covey stuff was important on Monday (I wrote it down the first time), but I didn't see how real these guidelines are, to me they were just another abstract theory.

Here is what I wrote down in class on Monday from the short clip that watched on Covey's four steps to effective leadership that apply to everyone in an organization:
1. Know the goals
2. Be passionate about the goals
3. Spend time on the goals
4. Understand how to achieve the goals (know your role)

First you must communicate what the important goals of the organization are (you can't have too many goals), the leaders must be clear and then they must overcommunicate what those goals are. The top priorities of the organization are often widely undercommunicated. Once people know the goals they must then be passionate about them (create ownership, involvement, and commitment). Finally, once the members of the organization know and are passionate about the goal, they must understand their roles in achieving the goal (what they need to reach it) and then use their time accordingly. Do their actions work toward achieving the goal? Are their actions relevant to the big picture of the vision for the organization?

This section on organizational goals relates back to what we discussed on organizational values. In this age of market saturation and extreme competition, I think that organizational values have become increasingly important in distinguishing one company from the next. The textbook provides empirical evidence that companies with clearly defined values and direction perform better than those who don't have such a clearly set path or vision. Companies exert more effort to express their values as a part of their image to the public. When I think of where I currently work or companies that I hope to work for in the future, they all try to communicate some sort of message to their employees and to the public. Just looking at some of their websites, it is clear to me what they stand for:

http://www.arcadiagroup.co.uk/careers/working/index.html

http://www.arcadiagroup.co.uk/responsibilities/index.html

http://www.monsoon.co.uk/page/culture

http://www.monsoon.co.uk/pcat/cultureandcommitment

http://www.gapinc.com/public/Careers/car_culture.shtml

http://www.gapinc.com/public/SocialResponsibility/socialres.shtml

Although each company uses some of the same words, each one communicates a separate and distinct message to set itself apart from the others. The focus differs tremendously--for example, Arcadia is commercial-driven whereas Monsoon is people-driven. It is good to know what an organization's values are, especially when looking for employment. As we mentioned in class, you either need to find a company whose values reflect your own, or change your values to reflect the companies. Either way researching company values is a critical step to take before even considering an interview.

Cohesiveness and Goals

Tonight we discussed the importance of cohesion, ways to promote it, and working towards goals as leaders and followers together. As one of the most seemingly obvious commodities of leadership, it is surprising how often it is overlooked. We were so stumped as to why we couldn't overcome the challenge of the second day of class as well as why we failed the tower challenge (and looking back we did in fact fail at that challenge, not even coming close to success). We came up with a plethora of reasons for our inadequacy in these challenges (lack of time, poor instructions, bad leadership, unwilling participants, etc. etc. etc.) and really what it all boils down to is cohesiveness. The answer was right there in front of us all along. On the first day of class we didn't have a goal and if we did, it varied so drastically from person to person that we were all going in a hundred different directions. There was no common purpose for us to achieve, except perhaps the assignment which was to observe and learn from leadership in the here and now. And we accomplished that, although inadvertently through some kind of Catch 22 (I can't really explain this without thoroughly confusing myself so I just won't go there). In contrast, with the tower building exercise, we did have a fairly defined goal but we were unable to coordinate our efforts effectively as a group. What we lacked in both cases is solidarity, or cohesion.

Cohesiveness is not just about getting along (although that definitely helps) it is about having the same goals! Take that a step further and it becomes about taking complementary actions towards those same goals and working together as one goal-reaching machine. The steps we take as individuals towards our group goal must be synchronized with other group members' actions so that we are all one the same track working toward the same goal. This was not the case during the tower building exercise. While we all knew our goal, our individual roles in achieving that goal as part of a group were not clearly defined. I found myself running around trying to help, but only found myself getting in the way until eventually I gave up. I felt helpless and I'm sure other members of my group felt the same.

I would like to revisit the point of having shared purpose because this is something that we talked about extensively last night and I feel that it is important. Feinberg demonstrated how drastically our goals for the class may differ from person to person. From his standpoint of instructor he would like to teach us to be better leaders--that is his goal. For the group leaders it might be for all of their members to come to class or to get an A. Then, as individuals, we may be satisfied with just passing the class while others such as myself hope to get something out of the class and in the process, earn an A. This presents leaders with the huge challenge of trying to meet all of these distinct needs and goals while trying to achieve their own.

Self-entitlement

Last night we touched on the issue of self-entitlement. I was initially a little surprised at the approach that Feinberg took on the matter and its contrast to what I have learned in the past. Last semester I took Human Development with Dr. Calahan who made an observation about self-entitlement from a sociological standpoint. First, he had us take a survey asking us questions like what we thought we deserved in life in general and what grades we deserved in the class, and how we rated ourselves as far as intelligence and performance. He said that studies have shown a high level of self-entitlement in our generation and he has been conducting surveys to test this over the past several semesters. The results always came back with a substantially higher proportion of students who considered themselves above average and who deserved A's in the class compared to the percentage who actually got A's at the end of the semester.

To me, this is not surprising. We have it drilled into our heads from birth that we are special and we deserve nothing but the best and idea usually encouraged by our parents and family members. I even read an article that admonished the Mr. Rogers children's program for teaching kids very early on "you are special just the way you are" implying that you don't have to do anything to be special. This might be a little extreme but it makes a very valid point. I've seen people get really pissed off when they don't get what they think they deserve and sometimes their behavior can be truly appalling.

In contrast, the other side of the self-entitlement says that we need more of it: people need to throw the old values of kindness and fairness out the window and start being more assertive. I was a little disturbed last night when Feinberg reiterated this viewpoint that I would typically expect from some merciless power-hungry hotshot in a suit who wouldn't hesitate to step on as many people as necessary in his climb to the top of the corporate ladder. I think about reality TV shows and the kind of over-confident, self-entitled people that are on them, and the clips that I've watched for this class such as the Southwest Airlines one. I think to myself, "there's no need to tell these people that they need to be more assertive and less polite."

But this message is a tricky one to deal with. You've got people in the class who could do with less and people who could do with more. The key is do you DESERVE it? And that's the hard part. Of course, the ones with low self-entitlement are going to say, "No, I could be doing better, I'm not working hard enough." They have no confidence, what do you expect them to say? On the other hand, the ones with an excess of it are going to say "Hell yeah I deserve it, I'm God's gift to mankind." Also the message is quite gender biased. I agree that a lot of women could do with being more assertive. Men would probably be fine without it.

Branding

This entry is in response to the podcast on Brand You. As a retail management student with a fair amount of background in marketing, branding is a concept that I understand pretty well. Products are branded to keep them from being generic, to stand out against the competition, to distinguish them as something that is unique and unable to be easily substituted or replaced. A brand offers a consumer a unique benefit beyond what is offered by similar products. It is an image and an entire package that translates into the value of the product offering. What a perfect way to describe a person as a candidate for a job, a promotion, or even for a friendship or serious relationship. You "sell" yourself on a regular basis. When you meet a new person, what motivates them to want to establish a friendship with you, what do you have to offer them? Is it your sense of humor, your confidence, your good looks, your kindness and generosity?

My goal over the course of this semester is to find out more about the corporate culture of the companies where I would like to apply so that I can see how my brand is aligned with what they value or if I need to alter it. Currently I would brand myself as highly creative and innovative, adaptive, very outside-the-box and open to new ideas, unfamiliar situations, taking risks, and eager to learn. In my opinion, these attributes would be valuable to any organization but as I have said before, these attributes are not enough on their own. I need to portray them through my actions and my ability to communicate them to my potential employer with examples from my past. That goes back to the lecture about having a story and my last blog entry. My first blog entry was in essence a story demonstrating my past leadership accomplishments. But I need to adapt it to make it more meaningful to my employer and find out what is important to them and explain how I fit the bill with "The Story."

Communication

One of the first lessons I learned in this class was that leaders are people who get things done; they don't just talk, they ACT. But that doesn't mean words aren't important. When the book talks about leaders giving voice to values, good communication skills become critical. One must be able to rally people around a cause and articulate meaning to that cause so that people can make it their own.

But this doesn't just apply to the grand scale of leadership, it applies to leadership on an individual level as well. In class we talked about interviews and more importantly what we say during them. You have 30 minutes to leave a lasting impression on your interviewer, what can you say to make them remember you? It's surely not enough to just rattle off some generic adjectives that they've heard a hundred times before. Save it for your resume; the interview your little window of opportunity to paint a picture of who you are to the person who may be hiring you. Communication is dire here. What good are my accomplishments if I cannot communicate what I've done to other people? It's not enough to say I'm a good problem solver or that I'm creative. I need a story to support these statements, I need to back it up with hard evidence--or at least something believable that illustrates what I mean by such broad and generic terms as "creative" and "pragmatic."

From my experience of interviews in the past, I know that many times the interviewer may give you an opportunity for such a story. Questions that stand out in my mind are "Tell me about a time when you did something special for a customer," or "Tell me about a time that you accomplished something that made you proud" or something along these lines. The problem is the story that you have prepared may not have anything to do with the question they ask you, in which case you can either think fast and improvise completely or try to adapt your story to answer the question. Feinberg talked about making an opportunity to tell your story if you need to, which may be necessary in this case. If they don't ask you about your story, you need to find a way to tell them anyway! I think one way to prevent such a situation is to find out what the organization values most. The first question that I mentioned above was from my interview at Gap. Gap is a very customer-service oriented company and that is a huge organizational value for them so it makes sense that they would ask me a question like that, and luckily I had a suitable story prepared.

But I am not always so lucky, and I tend to strike out more often then not. I bombed my Macy's interview, and my Target one (even thought I still got the job) because of my inability to communicate effectively and express myself as a valuable asset to their company. Last blog, I talked about self-improvement and acknowledging one's own shortcomings and then working to improve them. One of my biggest shortcomings is communication. The lack of eloquence is detrimental to success in the real world and is a major barrier to me becoming a good leader of myself and others.